Out on Bond on Murder Rap, Man Charged in Back of the Yards Shooting of 13

Quinton M. Humphries, of the 100 block of West 107th Street, has been charged with three felony counts of attempted first-degree murder and three felony counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
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Chicago Police Department

COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A seventh man has been charged in connection with a September shooting in Cornell Square Park that wounded 13, including a 3-year-old boy.

Quinton Humphries, an alleged getaway driver, was out on bond in a pending murder case when he drove a group of fellow gangbangers bent on revenge to the crowded Cornell Square Park on Sept. 19, authorities said.

There, police said, they unleashed a hail of bullets on the people gathered, wounding 13 — including 3-year-old Devonte Howard — and drew a national spotlight on the issue of Chicago gun violence.

Days after the shooting, four of the suspects were arrested, including Bryon Champ, a 21-year-old member of the Black P Stone Nation gang accused of rounding up friends to take revenge for a bullet that grazed him earlier that day.

Charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, Humphries, 20, was ordered held without bail on Wednesday. Humphries was on the street after being accused of another murder in July, and posting 10 percent of his $500,000 bail.

Little more than three months earlier he was brought before another Cook County judge on murder charges after prosecutors said he and a second man flashed gang signs before fatally shooting Shavonte Howard.

Champ, the "main player" in the Cornell Square Park shooting, had been convicted of gun possession as a felon last year, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said at a news conference.

A judge sent Champ to boot camp, and he was released when he completed the program.

“If Bryon Champ is not on the street — as he shouldn’t have been — this incident likely does not occur," said McCarthy, who has advocated stricter sentencing for gun crimes. “He received boot camp for that gun crime and was back out on the streets to be a part of this senseless shooting."